Restoring Human Dignity through Social Entrepreneurship


"Come on up for the rising
Com on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight"
Bruce Springsteen















Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Two Choice Theory

As a child, we look for faults outside ourselves. And the most common cry we make is that “It’s not fair”. And, in the world view of a child, where needs are met by a support system and care is brought to us, that is an appropriate view.

When we arrive at adulthood, that view needs to change. We need to become responsible for our own actions, accepting the consequences (both good and bad) for our choices and our actions.
With that rather simplistic statement, let’s take a look at the world today.

Government funding is rampant. Personal greed is out of control. Law suits dot the landscape, waving in the wind like yesterday’s newspaper on a cold winter day. And what lies beneath these trends is a single human frailty, the Peter Pan Syndrome (I don’t want to grow up).

It is, quite simply, much easier to stay in the child’s mode, to blame others, to point the finger anywhere but in the mirror, to seek the solution that requires the least effort on your own part. And for a country that is founded on self-reliance, on independence and the fruit of one’s own labor, this is a particularly interesting cultural drift.

So as we move into a decade of personal responsibility, let’s remember that we have two choices. We can either be an effect, or we can have an effect. We can choose to be a victim and cry out for someone to throw us a rope; or we can be the rope maker. We can call for a new law to force others to do as we wish, or we can be a role model and do the right thing even we are not required to (or even when no one is looking).

The adult choice is obvious. Let’s hope we make it.